Some Like It Hoth
'"Some Like It Hoth"' is the thirteenth episode of Season 5 of ''Lost and the ninety-ninth produced hour of the series as a whole and was originally broadcasted on April 15, 2009. In 1977, suspicions about a possible security breach inside the DHARMA Initiative intensify after Ben is taken from the infirmary by Kate. A reluctant Miles is forced to work with Hurley when he is ordered by Radzinsky to deliver an important package to his father. The flashbacks focus on Miles searching for answers about his father, working as a medium, and joining the freighter crew. Synopsis Flashback March 16, 1985 A woman, Lara, is looking at an apartment with the landlord and her young son, Miles. When questioned about her circumstances, she tells the landlord that her husband is "out of the picture." The landlord objects to Miles at first, because the neighbors dislike noise, but Lara assures him that Miles is quiet. She gives Miles a quarter for the vending machine. Miles reaches the vending machine, and appears to hear something, causing him to walk toward apartment 4. Taking a hidden key from underneath a stone rabbit (which has the number 8 on its ear), he opens the door and looks inside. Several apartments down, Lara is writing a check (dated 3/16/1985) when she hears her son calling for her. She follows his voice to apartment 4, and finds him inside, standing near a man's corpse. Miles claims to hear the corpse talking, saying he is calling for "Kimberly". Trevor recognizes the name as that of Mr. Vonner's wife, who is deceased. Lara backs away, concern and astonishment warring on her face. Miles cries out that he told her that he could hear "them" talking. ♪ Mid-90's - Early 00's Years later, a heavily pierced Miles visits his mother, who is staying in an apartment with a caregiver. His mother is extremely sick, bedridden and is losing her hair. While his mother is happy to see him, she asks why he has come to visit her. Miles replies that he wants answers, mostly about his father. She replies that his father kicked them out when Miles was just a baby, and forced them to leave. She tells Miles that his father has been dead for a very long time and his corpse is buried in a place he can never go. ♪ 2004 Some time later, an adult Miles speaks with Howard Gray, who wants Miles to use his powers to contact his son, who died in a car accident, and make sure that the son knew that Gray loved him. Miles is apprehensive when he discovers that the son has been cremated and asks for a larger sum of money, which Gray readily gives. Miles then appears to contact the spirit of the son, and assures Gray that the son was aware of his love. Gray thanks Miles, and Miles leaves. After leaving, Miles is approached by Naomi Dorrit, who invites Miles to come with her to a restaurant to hear a business offer. After being offered a large sum of money, Miles readily agrees. Naomi takes Miles to the kitchen of a restaurant, and shows him the body of Felix, telling Miles to use his ability to determine details about Felix. Miles is able to tell the man's name, as well as the fact that he was attempting to deliver cemetery photos of empty graves and a purchase order for an old airplane to Charles Widmore, both of which involved the fake wreckage of Oceanic Flight 815. Miles leaves, at first not interested and scared. ♪ Naomi offers Miles $1.6 million to come to the Island on the Kahana, to which Miles agrees instantly. Soon afterward, Miles orders a fish taco from a taco stand. As he walks down the street eating it, a van pulls up. Bram is in the passenger side, and greets Miles by name. When Miles responds by asking who Bram is, he is suddenly grabbed by several masked men and forced into the van. Bram attempts to persuade Miles not to go to the Island, determining he is not ready by Miles' inability to answer his question, "what lies in the shadow of the statue?". Bram offers Miles answers about his ability and his father, but Miles doesn't care; he instead wants $3.2 million dollars, twice the amount offered to him by Naomi. ($3.2 million is also the same amount Miles tries to extort from Ben in .) Bram refuses to pay, and dumps Miles out of the van. ♪ Bram tells Miles he is "playing for the wrong team." When asked by Miles what team Bram is on, he replies that he's on "the team that's going to win." Later, Miles visits Howard Gray, and returns to him the money which he had been paid. When asked why he is doing so, Miles reveals that he lied to Gray; he had been unable to make contact with Gray's son. The incredulous Gray asks why Miles couldn't have just continued the lie, and Miles responds that it wouldn't have been fair to the son, to whom the father should have professed his love before the son's death. Miles then leaves. ♪ On the Island Kate and Sawyer return from dropping off young Ben to Richard, and Sawyer contacts Miles at the Security office to erase the surveillance tape. Kate is worried that Sawyer could get in trouble, but he's confident he can smooth things over. Miles pops out the tape, but before he can erase it, Horace arrives with a package, asking after LaFleur. Miles tells him that he's tried to contact LaFleur on the radio, but he's out of contact. Horace gives Miles the package to bring to Radzinsky, and asks him to get a package in return, "no questions asked". Horace tells Miles that he's letting him in the circle of trust. Miles drives to the location Horace specified, and delivers the package, which turns out to be a body bag. Radzinsky puts a body in it, and tells him to transport it back to Horace. Miles, curious as to why a person who apparently fell in a ditch had a head wound, unzips the body bag and uses his ability to find out what really happened. He learns that the dead man, Alvarez, had a filling which ripped from his mouth and exited through his brain. Roger discovers that Ben is missing from the hospital. Juliet lies about not knowing the reason for his disappearance. Kate later attempts to comfort Roger, who becomes irrationally angry and suspicious. ♪ Roger has some beer, and goes to the classroom, discovering that Jack is covering his work for him, assuming Roger would want the time off because Ben was injured. Roger brushes off Jack's help, confronting him about his suspicions about Kate, saying he's going to report it to Horace. Jack attempts to dispel his paranoia, but Roger seems unconvinced as he stalks away. Jack then goes to Juliet and Sawyer's house to inform them of Roger's behavior. Sawyer arrives home, tired from trekking around the jungle, and is confronted by Phil, who has the tape that Miles failed to erase. Sawyer punches Phil, knocking him out, and tells Juliet to get some rope. Horace, after a consultation with Dr. Pierre Chang, tells Miles to bring the body to the Orchid so it can be determined if the accident was caused by electromagnetism. Miles walks back to his van to complete the assignment, but finds Hurley loading coolers filled with sandwiches for the Orchid construction team into the vehicle. After he insists they carpool, they set off, only to have Hurley notice an unpleasant odor. ♪ Miles jokes that it is probably Hurley's special garlic mayonnaise, but Hurley is concerned that his food might be contaminated. Hurley investigates and discovers the body. Confronted, Miles tells him what really happened to the body. To Miles' bewilderment, Hurley completely accepts his story, noting he also talks with the dead, and sometimes plays chess with them. Miles says that isn't how it works, at which point Hurley responds that Miles admitted to his ability. Miles explains that he is able to get a "feeling" about who the deceased was and whatever they knew before they died. ♪ At the Orchid, Dr. Chang isn't happy that Miles brought Hurley along, and less happy that Hurley knew about the body. ♪ He threatens Hurley with the task of weighing polar bear dung on Hydra Island if he talks, but Hurley is happy working in the kitchens and agrees to keep the secret. While privately talking to Hurley about the attitude of Dr. Chang, Miles confesses to Hurley that Chang is his father. Dr. Chang wants to hitch a ride back to Radzinsky, and Miles and Hurley take him there, where a fake jungle wall masks the construction of the Swan station. Along the way, Hurley keeps dropping hints about the relationship between Miles and Pierre, which upsets Miles. At the site, they witness workers stamping a serial number on to the Hatch. ♪ On the way back, Miles and Hurley get into another disagreement. Miles steals Hurley's notebook, in which he has written the script for The Empire Strikes Back, ''"with a couple improvements". Hurley notes that it's 1977, and ''Star Wars was just released. He believes he's doing George Lucas a favor by writing the sequel, and says, "Ewoks suck, dude." Hurley also tells Miles about his own troubled relationship with his father, and how he forgave him. He suggests Miles try to gain a relationship with his own father. ♪ At night, Miles sees his mother, father and his infant self through a window of their home. His father is lovingly holding the baby, sitting in an armchair and reading him a picture book, Me and My Polar Bear. After Dr. Chang receives a phone call interrupting their bonding time and gets up from the chair, adult Miles tries to walk away before he is seen. Dr. Chang comes out, donning a windbreaker with a generic DHARMA logo, and hailing his son with "Miles! I need you!", instructs him to take them to the dock to meet a new group of scientists. Hastily hiding his emotional episode, Miles agrees. Miles drives Dr. Chang to the dock where the submarine has arrived with a team of scientists from Ann Arbor. Miles is surprised to find Daniel Faraday emerging from the sub with them. Trivia *This is the second time one of the Kahana crew members is given a centric episode of his own, the first was Michael. **This is the only purely Miles-centric episode. *There is a student's drawing of an erupting volcano in the classroom where Jack and Roger speak. * Grid 334 is the fourth grid mentioned. Jin and Sawyer discussed searches of grids 133 and 134 in and Radzinsky detected Sayid in grid 325 in . *The noteboook that Hurley writes his version of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back bears a previously unseen DHARMA logo; the "school logo", featuring an apple atop several books. Ironically, the notebooks used by the children at the Barracks school in bore the Pearl Station logo instead. *As always, Chang's labcoat bears the Swan station logo, even when he is working at the Orchid site. *If you look at Howard's wrist watch when Miles is talking to him you can see that he is wearing the exact same watch as the one Ben wore in the episode where you see him kill his father. *This episode is called "Una Eva y Luke Sky Walker" (One Eve and Luke Sky Walker) in Spanish. * This episode is rated TV-PG-LV. Production notes * Jeremy Davies (Daniel) returns after being missing for four episodes. *Brad William Henke (Bram) is the only actor to carry over from the previous episode. *Marsha Thomason appears for the last time as Naomi. This was Thomason's first appearance since . Bloopers and continuity errors *When Sawyer talks to Miles on the walkie-talkie he is seen de-activating the sonar fence. Yet two episodes earlier he can clearly be seen carrying young Ben and -not- re-activating the fence. *When Kate opens her beer (on the swing with Roger) we can clearly see the can has one of the new type (litter-free) ring pulls. These certainly weren't invented in 1977. **The producers have jokingly explained this by stating that the ring pulls were invented by the DHARMA Initiative. *The DHARMA worker is seen picking up the Swan hatch door with ease, yet in "Exodus, Part 2" it takes both Jack and Locke using their full strength to move it slightly and it's described as a "foot thick steel door". *As young Miles approaches the door of Apt #4, his hand touches the door very close to the doorknob. In an immediate cutaway, his hand is much further away from the knob. *The TV remote control on the floor of the dead tenant in young Miles' flashback moves around several times between shots. *At the pylons, the sweat on Kate's shirt disappears when she enters the van. *The periodic table on the wall in the Schoolhouse contains elements not yet discovered in 1977. *Miles closes the hatchback of the van when Chang tells him to wait at the Orchid. In the next scene, it's open again. *In one shot, Elmer is seen behind Kate. In the next shot which faces the opposite direction, he is seen behind Roger. *The Lisa computer in the security station was not in production until early 1983. *On the way to the construction site, the van passes by a backhoe which bears modern Case CE decals which did not exist in 1977. *The heavy-set extra who passes Miles before the kidnapping passes the barbershop next door to the taco stand twice, the first time walking slowly, then walking more quickly. *In the moments before the kidnapping, the camera cuts between two angles repeatedly. In one, Miles is holding the taco, the next he has put it down, then he is holding it again, and one last time it is down before he is kidnapped. *As Roger talks to Jack in the school, Jack is wiping the far right side of a chalkboard. In the next shot of Jack, he has finished brushing the middle part, and in the next shot of him, the middle is not brushed. When Roger kicks his bucket, Jack is suddenly at the far left side of the chalkboard and has finished wiping the entire board, despite their conversation only lasting less than 30 seconds. *During the initial conversation with Horace, Miles puts his walkie on the desk, where it stays for the duration of the conversation. When he's about to leave, the walkie is in his hand again. * Miles has a mustache and goatee, but he did not in . However, no days have passed since the two episodes. * At the Swan construction site, the worker stamps the numbers very close to the hatch door. However in , we saw that the numbers were engraved on the bottom part of the structure (just above the concrete wall). ** However, they could have appeared in both places. The numbers were stamped on the hatch door as a serial number originally, and then later engraved outside because of their significance, to help "replacements" never forget the numbers they needed to enter. *As Miles and Hurley drive back to the barracks at night, Hurley is writing in his notebook in pitch black, without any source of light. *The person placed into the body bag was said to have been killed when magnetic forces ripped a filling from his tooth and out through his skull, but steel is not normally used in dental fillings. *During Hurley's speech to Miles, it's mentioned that Vader tells Luke about being his father and then Luke gets his hand cut off. In the actual movie these events are switched, and Luke gets his hand cut off first. **This could be an actual continuity error, Hurley's error (albeit unlikely for someone who's seen it "like 200 times"), or one of Hurley's "improvements" on the script. * In the classroom where Roger and Jack run into each other, there's a sign on the wall that says "Dharma students make learning fun!" Just as the banner in , this is incorrect: DHARMA is an acronym and should not be spelled out as a name. *As he gets off the sub, Daniel's jumpsuit can be seen to bear the Swan station logo, even though he has never been anywhere near it and certainly could never have been posted there as he'd been off-island for some time and the station isn't even complete. * Miles has no scars after taking off all his piercings. He would have scars at least in his ears and nose. Also, his pierced eyebrow is slightly bigger than the other one, probably because of the make-up used in order to hold the fake pearls. Music The Season 5 soundtrack includes the track "I Hear Dead People" from this episode. Analysis Recurring themes *There are several references to the Numbers: **The date, as written by Lara on the cheque is 3/16/85. **3:16 appears on the microwave in Miles' home as a boy. **The cheque number is 316. **The landlord tells Miles' mom that the apartment is a steal at $400 and demands two months' rent up front ($800). **8 is written inside the ear of the rabbit statue where the young Miles finds the key to the dead man's apartment. **Mr. Vonner lived in apartment 4. **8 is the number below the peg where Miles returns the DHARMA van key. **The Sports Illustrated cover Miles reads at the Security station has the headline: "After 23 years...NEW BOSS IN L.A." **LaFleur asks Miles to erase the video from camera 4. **Horace sends Miles on a mission to grid 334. **Miles and Hurley witness a workman hammering the Numbers into the Swan hatch. **Naomi tells Miles her employer will pay him "1.6" million dollars, which, on top of the 3.2 million dollars he demanded from Ben, totals up to "4.8" million dollars. **Miles has 15 piercings in his ears and face as a young man. *Miles' black hair has a white stripe running through it when he visits his ailing mother. *Hurley's notebook is black and white. *Miles' father abandons Miles and his mother. *A man wants Miles to talk to his dead son fearing he died without ever knowing his father loved him. **Miles tells Howard Gray, a man who hired him to speak to his deceased son, that if he wanted his son to know he loved him, he should have told him before he died. *Miles finds his father after never knowing him as he was growing up. *Alvarez had the filling in his tooth ripped from his mouth where it proceeded to shoot up through his head, killing him. *Hurley mentions Darth Vader cutting off his son Luke's hand in The Empire Strikes Back to Miles. In one of the orientation films, Miles's father Chang is shown with what appears to be a rubber hand, implying that he will lose his hand at some point in the future. *Sawyer tries to protect his con by knocking Phil out and tying him up, after Phil found the tape of Kate and him giving Ben to Richard Alpert. *LaFleur asks Miles to erase the surveillance video. *Miles intially lies to Howard Gray about communicating with his dead son. *DHARMA is building the Swan in the Others' territory and hiding it, in direct violation of the truce. *Miles discovers a man who died alone from a heart attack. *Pierre is reading a book called Me and My Polar Bear to Miles. *Miles finds a key to Mr. Vonner's apartment under a rabbit statue. *There is a painting of horses over the bed of Miles' mother when he visits her. *Russell Gray was a football player who was killed by a drunk driver. *Bram fails to persuade Miles to join their team. *Miles calls Sawyer "Jim" (as does Horace), Naomi "Sweetheart," Hurley "Dimwit" and Daniel "Dan." Sawyer calls Jack "Doc." Phil calls Sawyer "Boss." *You can read the word "Vida" in the Taco's shop, which means "Life". *Alvarez died due to an electromagnetic leak at the Swan. *Horace lets Miles in on the "circle of trust" and informs him of the secrets within the circle. Cultural references * Some Like It Hot: The episode title is a play on the title of this 1959 comedy starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, and Jack Lemmon. In the movie, the two main characters must disguise themselves as members of an all-girl band to avoid retribution after witnessing a mob assassination. Pierre and Hurley's conversation about jazz echoes the film's conversation that lent it its title. * It Never Rains in Southern California: This song by Albert Hammond is playing when Hurley and Miles are driving to the Orchid station. (Hammond also wrote/performed a song entitled "I Don't Wanna Die in an Air Disaster.") * Love Will Keep Us Together: This song by Captain & Tennille is playing on the trip to the Orchid station as well. * Miles Davis: Miles' mother is a fan of this legendary jazz trumpeter and names Miles after him. * Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope: Hurley mentions that this movie has just come out when Miles reads his notebook. A New Hope was released on May 25, 1977. * Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back: The episode title is a reference to the fact that Hurley is writing the script for this movie, which features a planet named Hoth; he later plans to send this script to George Lucas, the writer. * Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi: There are several references to events in this movie in Hurley's conversation with Miles after they return from the Swan station: the destruction of the Death Star, Boba Fett being eaten by the Sarlacc and of course, the Ewoks. * Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates: This is a novel by American author Mary Mapes Dodge, first published in 1865. The novel takes place in the Netherlands. Sawyer refers to this tale when he asks if Juliet ever felt like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dike. *''Sports Illustrated: In the opening scene, Miles is reading the March 14, 1977 issue of this magazine. *'Hieroglyphs: The lesson Jack erased from the classroom board was about Ancient Egypt and hieroglyphs. One of the lines translates as "Writing of the words of God". *Global warming: Hurley suggests he and Miles carpool to the Orchid to "help stop global warming". *Jimmy Hoffa''': The workers form the DI joke that Jimmy Hoffa might be in the bodybag. James Riddle "Jimmy" Hoffa was an American trade union leader who was convicted of attempted bribery of a grand juror. In 1975, a few years after his release from jail, he disappeared without a trace. It is believed that Hoffa was murdered at the behest of organized crime figures. Literary techniques *Alvarez died while working in the construction of the Swan. *Miles' mother told him he could never go where his father's body was, yet years later Naomi recruited him to go there. *You can see a red light when Miles is in recruiting situations: in the restaurant with Naomi and in the van with Bram. *Sawyer tells Miles that he "owes him one," when he asks to destroy the tape. In Matthew Abaddon told Locke that he'll "owe him one," if he takes a walkabout. *Horace tells Miles that he and Sawyer are in the "circle of trust," while they're trying to destroy the tape of sending Ben away. *Roger Linus tells Juliet that he's going to Security to help find Ben when it was Sawyer, the head of Security, who helped send Ben away. *Miles tells Hurley he doesn't see dead people because "that's not how it works." *Miles drives Pierre to the dock and meets Daniel just coming out of the submarine. *Bram tells Miles if he chooses not to go on the boat he will help him find out about his father; but by choosing to go on the boat Miles ends up actually meeting his father in person. *Miles says that Mr. Gray should have told his son he loved him while he was alive. Pierre Chang should've told Miles he loved him before Chang died. *Miles reveals to Hurley that Pierre Chang is his father. Storyline analysis *Ben's dad becomes suspicious of Kate. *Hurley helps Miles by telling him his secret and giving him advice. *Bram is part of a team who opposes Charles Widmore. *Phil finds out about Sawyer taking Ben. *Naomi recruits Miles onto the freighter mission. Episode connections Episode references * Hurley told Miles that the Swan hatch is what crashed Oceanic 815. * The numbers are seen being embossed into the Swan hatch. * Hurley recalls an "accident" as the reason for the button protocol to be introduced in the Swan. * Hurley tells Miles that Pierre Chang "Is the dude who was in all those movies". * Hurley tells Miles that his own father left when he was 10 years old. * Naomi recruits Miles for the freighter. * Miles reveals that the dead man Naomi brought him to was attempting to bring photos of empty graves and a purchase order for an old airplane to Charles Widmore (relating to the faked wreckage of Flight 815). * Hurley mentions playing chess with the dead. * The Orchid is seen under construction. * Pierre Chang says he has a 3-month-old son. * Pierre Chang says he likes country music. * Roger references Kate giving blood to Ben. * Roger is bringing supplies back from the Staff. Episode allusions * Miles asks Bram for $3.2 million to not go onto the freighter, the same amount he would later ask from Ben to tell Widmore he was dead. * Pierre tells Miles and Hurley that he enjoys listening to country music. * Bram asks Miles the same question Ilana would later ask Frank on the Island. Unanswered questions *Why did Dr. Chang want Alvarez' corpse brought to the Orchid? External links Press Release http://www.abcmedianet.com/web/dnr/dispDNR.aspx?id=033009_12 da:Some Like It Hoth es:Some Like It Hoth fr:5x13 he:ההיסטוריה מכה שנית it:Il padre che non c'era pl:Some Like It Hoth ru:Некоторые любят похолоднее Category:Miles-centric Category:Episodes without a Previously on Lost Category:Season 5 Category:Episodes Category:Episodes that are Rated TV-PG-LV